US Localities Show Cutting Carbon Emissions Will Require A Mix Of Strategies

Besides my Natural Weekends photos, I’m also going to try to start posting some green news as well on the weekend. Of course, I didn’t get to it this weekend but I wanted to highlight one story that grabbed me.

The HuffPost had a piece about five American localities that now are 100% powered by renewable energy. The five locations are Aspen, Colorado; Kodiak Island, Alaska; Greensburg, Kansas;  Burlington, Vermont; and Rock Port, Missouri. As you can see these are pretty diverse locations and together they illustrate that there is more than one way to significantly reduce carbon emissions in power generation and even get to a place where you are relying 100% on renewables. In fact, these locations illustrate that getting to 100% renewables will usually require a mix of strategies.

Rock Port relies almost exclusively on wind energy. Greensburg primarily uses wind energy but also has solar and geothermal power sources as well. Kodiak Island primarily relies on hydroelectric power but augmented with wind turbines. Burlington has a mix of hydro, solar, wind, landfill methane, and wood chips for its power. Lastly, Aspen is similar to Kodiak, relying on hydro with help from wind purchased from other states.

All tolled, these five locations only have a population of slightly under 65,000 people, two thirds of which come from Burlington. So these are not huge scale projects. In addition, three of the five localities are significantly relying on hydro power which is clearly not going to be available in all locations. But these five certainly that it is possible to get to 100% renewable power generation without breaking the bank. More importantly, the mix of energy sources show that there are plenty of ways to significantly reduce carbon emissions without necessarily getting to 100%. And, as the cost of wind and solar continue to drop, that effort should become cheaper and easier for more localities to implement.